Expectations for a warming planet – slow feedbacks
| Slow Feedbacks | (slow feedbacks are things that happen slowly – decades to centuries to millennia)
• Arctic ice will melt and the newly-ice free waters will absorb energy instead of reflecting it
• The “snow line” will retreat and the newly snow-free land absorb energy instead of reflecting it
• Trees will replace shrubs in the Arctic, and trees absorb more energy than shrubs
• Some of the organic carbon (in permafrost, peat bogs, etc.) will decompose
• Some of the methane from methyl hydrates will be released
• Sea level rise of 20-30 feet for each degree of warming
• The Greenland ice sheet will likely melt | | | Source: Bruce Parker |
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